Home > Tutorials > Bootstrap > Hello World |
When you submit a HTML form to the framework, the input is not sent to another server page, but to a Java class that you provide. These classes are called Actions. After the Action fires, a Result selects a resource to render the response. The resource is generally a server page, but it can also be a PDF file, an Excel spreadsheet, or a Java applet window.
Suppose you want to create a simple "Hello World" example that displays a welcome message. After setting up an empty "tutorial" web application (see Ready, Set, Go!), to create a "Hello World" example, you need to do three things:
![]() | By creating these components, we are separating the workflow into three well-known concerns: the View, the Model, and the Controller. Separating concerns makes it easier to manage applications as they become more complex. |
Let's look at an example Action, server page, and mapping. If you like, fire up your IDE, and enter the code as we go.
First, we need a server page to present the message.
Second, we need an Action class to create the message.
Third, we need a mapping to tie it all together.
Edit the struts.xml file to add the HelloWorld mapping.
Go ahead and try it now! Deploy the application and open http://localhost:8080/tutorial/HelloWorld.action and see what happens! You should see a page with the title "Hello World!" and the message "Struts is up and running!".
![]() | Don't forget Compile your Action to WEB-INF/classes and restart your container if necessary. If you are using maven, you can just run: |
Your browser sends to the web server a request for the URL http://localhost:8080/tutorial/HelloWorld.action.
For detailed information on Struts 2 architecture see Big Picture.
Testing an Action is easy. Here's a test for our Hello World Action.
The framework uses Actions to process HTML forms and other requests. The Action class returns a result-name such as SUCCESS, ERROR, or INPUT. Based on the mappings loaded from the struts.xml, a given result-name may select a page (as in this example), another action, or some other web resource (image, PDF).
When a server page is rendered, most often it will include dynamic data provided by the Action. To make it easy to display dynamic data, the framework provides a set of tags that can be used along with HTML markup to create a server page.
Next | Onward to Using Tags |
---|---|
Prev | Return to Ready, Set, Go! |